Mr. FRITTS. This is a study of 244 miles of highways that have been improved by widening. They are all 2-lane roads. I mention that many of our miles are outmoded in design. There they had the old pavements 18 feet wide. They were rebuilt to 22 feet, which is modern design for highways of that character. We took out of the study, or they took out of the study, those accidents that had nothing to do with the pavement width itself; in other words, intersection accidents, for instance, were taken out of the study. This refers only to those accidents which occur in moving along, and eliminated the intersection problem. It shows that after widening the rate went down from 230 to start with before the widening to 140 per 100 million vehicle-miles after the improvements were made, or a reduction in the rate of accidents of 39 percent. Here is another chart which shows the effect of narrow bridges which I am sure you are all aware of. It is one of the bad accident potentials. (The chart referred to is as follows:) Mr. FRITTS. Where the structure width on the left, for instance, with a narrow guardrail, was narrower than the approach width of the pavement, the accident rate was 100 accidents per hundred million. vehicles. Where the bridge was widened and the width was up to 5 feet wider, the rate dropped to 58. Where the width of the bridge was equal to the width of the roadway it dropped down to 1,200 per hundred million vehicles. That is based on a study in some 10 States on that particular thing. This is another chart. (The chart referred to is as follows:) EFFECT OF SHOULDER WIDTH Mr. FRITTS. Here we show the effect of widening and having adequate shoulders. This is a study made in California involving some 1,169 miles. The accident rate where they had no shoulders at all was 342 per hundred million vehicle miles. It dropped down to 250 with 2 to 3 feet, and when you got down to 4 to 5 feet, and even 6 to 7 feet, it dropped to 180, and down to 165 when we were over 8 feet wide. This is another chart. (The chart referred to is as follows:) Mr. FRITTS. Now I am going to show you a map prepared by the Virginia Department of Highways and shows the comparison of accidents on the Shirley Highway, a four-lane divided, limited access highway just south of Washington. Perhaps you have driven over it. Also, the parallel of U. S. 1, a four-lane undivided highway with no access control. This is an actual work diagram prepared by the department. You will note that all accidents are shown by diagrams and symbols showing the location and type, and where one accident involves more than one injury it is indicated by numbers in the symbols. The comparative accident records are shown by the summary. This is for the year 1953. The total number of accidents on Route 1 was 277. On the Shirley Highway, 100. You will note also that the traffic volumes are approximately the same-10,000 on one, and a little more than 11,000 on the other. And the distances are about the same. In injury accidents there were 71 on Route 1 and 34 on Shirley; 142 people were injured on the old road, 67 on the new. There were 10 fatalities on the old road and 3 on the new. The computation has been made there and shows a reduction in the property damage, a comparison between the two. In the end the fatality rate on the old route was 20.5 per hundred million vehicle miles and on the Shirley Highway 6.1. That 6.1 resulted from 3 fatalities which is a pretty small statistical sample. On the other hand last year the rate-the year before that the rate on the Shirley Highway was only 4.4. Senator GORE. Highway 1 is a good road, is it not? Mr. FRITTS. That is an undivided uncontrolled access facility, down through all the developments south of Washington toward Richmond. It is undivided and it is one of the older normal service type of roads that we have existing in many sections. Senator GORE. It is not a narrow highway. Mr. FRITTS. No; it is not narrow, but the accident record shows that it is unsafe because it is serving so many purposes. It is serving all the property and all the businesses. Senator GORE. Is Shirley Mr. FRITTS. It is a fully controlled access facility. Senator GORE. But there are frequent access points? Mr. FRITTS. Oh, yes. We have several interchanges, indicated on the upper chart. There are several points of access, entrances, but they are all separated intersections. I think the significance of this chart is just simply to make that comparison to show what happens when we actually build a new facility. Now we will go to the next chart. (The chart referred to appears on p. 823.) Mr. FRITTS. Here is a chart where we have gathered together the records on quite a sampling of the modern facilities as compared with the older facilities, just as we did with Shirley In California, for instance, there is an excellent rate on the new modern freeways and expressways of 2.12 where on the whole rural State highway system the rate is 9.39. In Maine we have an experience of 2.8 on the Maine Turnpike, and on old U. S. 1, for 1 year, it was 22.3. |